Chemsex deaths not recorded by NHS or Office for National Statistics, BBC investigation claims
Chemsex: Hidden Pleasures, Hidden Harms explores the risks some gay men are taking by combining sex with powerful and addictive drugs
By Callum Wells
A new BBC File on 4 investigation has claimed that deaths linked to chemsex are not being officially recorded by the NHS or Office for National Statistics (ONS), prompting warnings that the true scale of the problem in the gay community is being missed.
Chemsex: Hidden Pleasures, Hidden Harms, presented by reporter Mobeen Azhar and now available on BBC Sounds, explores the risks some gay men are taking by combining sex with powerful and addictive drugs such as crystal meth and GHB.
While some participants told the BBC they can manage their use and that the drugs heighten pleasure, others shared stories of addiction, physical decline and even death.
“At present we don’t have a code for Chemsex related drugs” – Dr Naomi Fitzgerald, consultant in HIV and sexual health at King’s College London
The programme found that chemsex itself isn’t recorded by the ONS as a cause of death – only overdoses involving drugs such as GHB are. According to official figures, 25 people died from GHB overdoses in 2023, but medical experts say the real number of chemsex-related deaths could be far higher.
Dr Naomi Fitzgerald, consultant in HIV and sexual health at King’s College London, told the BBC that the lack of formal coding for chemsex-related harms means the NHS can’t accurately measure the issue or fund the necessary services.
“At present we don’t have a code for Chemsex related drugs so if somebody comes in with a crystal meth intoxication then we cannot code that so it’ll be coded as drug intoxication and so from a healthcare perspective it would be great if we could have a code for GHB/GBL crystal meth or in fact Chemsex related harm for example,” said Fitzgerald.
“We urgently need codes for emergency services to identify the prevalence of drug related admissions” – Marc Svensson, founder of You Are Loved CIC
Marc Svensson, founder of the LGBTQ+ mental health charity You Are Loved CIC, welcomed the BBC’s investigation and called for urgent action.
He told Attitude, “This is an excellent and much-needed investigation, into an issue in our community that is encouragingly being talked about more lately, but sadly with little action from public health services to address it. We urgently need codes for emergency services to identify the prevalence of drug related admissions involving the three ‘chemsex drugs’. We also need the Office of National Statistics (ONS) to provide the same data on sexual orientation and drug-related death rates as they did for sexual orientation and suicide rates earlier in the year. I have little doubts the findings would be similar, if not worse.”
File on 4: Chemsex – Hidden Pleasures, Hidden Harms is available to listen to now on BBC Sounds.